The novel “Mirror Dance” by Lois McMaster Bujold was published for the first time in 1994. It’s part of the Vorkosigan saga. It won the Hugo Award and the Locus Award as the best science fiction novel of the year. It was also published in an omnibus edition titled “Miles Errant” together with the novel “Brothers in Arms” of which it’s a sequel.

The clone created to replace Miles Vorkosigan in a political conspiracy abandoned that project after rebelling against the people who created him. The name Mark was given him by the Vorkosigan family after his existence was discovered but he keeps away from them. Instead, he wants to return to Jackson’s Whole, where he was created, to save other clones whose bodies are to be used to transplant in them the brain of the lords of the planet.

Mark poses as Miles but only as his alter-ego Admiral Naismith to take control of his fleet and with a team make a surgical strike in the Jackson’s Whole facility hosting the clones. The plan doesn’t go as predicted so Mark and his soldiers are under attack. Luckily for him, in the meantime Miles discovered the deception and located his clone so he comes to the rescue with other ships of his fleet but he’s killed. At that point the situation becomes very complicated for Mark.

Mark, Miles Vorkosigan’s clone, appeared for the first time in the novel “Brothers in Arms”. In “Mirror Dance” there are enough explanations about Mark’s story to read this book on its own but it’s certainly better to have also read the previous one. Actually the best thing would be to read the whole Vorkosigan saga to have a complete idea of that fictional universe and its extraordinary protagonists.

“Mirror Dance” is the story of Mark, a clone created to be used as a tool in a political conspiracy who rebelled against that fate. Instructed to replace his progenitor Miles Vorkosigan, he must seek his own identity but his every move seems to tie him even more to Miles.

Actually, Mark could’ve accepted the Vorkosigan family’s invitation to officially join them as Mark Pierre Vorkosigan, the name he’d receive according to Barrayar’s naming tradition. Countess Cordelia is a Betan and despite thirty years spent on Barrayar her birth culture remains a fundamental part of her thinking so Mark is her son no matter how he’s born. Miles is influenced by his maternal culture and Count Aral is influenced by his wife.

However, Mark wants to get away from the Vorkosigan family but he wants to pursue a project he conceived and to do that he must once again pose as Miles. In fact, Mark wants to return to Jackson’s Whole, where he was created, to save a group of clones and to do that he takes command of the Dendarii Mercenaries in a time when Miles is absent.

Mark studied military strategy to pose as Miles but when he leads a real military operation he realizes that it’s very different from making up a plan on paper. Mark’s fate gets tied even more to Miles, who after discovering his clone’s trick goes to rescue him and his soldiers but is killed in the fight with the armed forces who defend the facility in which the clones are held.

Exposed and more than ever in trouble, Mark is brought to Barrayar, where he’s forced to become part of the Vorkosigan family. Planet Barrayar with his society, Count and Countess Vorkosigan are the protagonists of most of the stories of this saga and if you read them you know their complexity. In “Mirror Dance” in a way they’re rediscovered from Mark’s point of view: he studied them in theory but for the first time he gets to know them directly with all their strengths and their flaws.

Paradoxically, Mark starts finding himself only after getting truly immersed in Miles’s life passing through difficult and painful moments. Lois McMaster Bujold doesn’t include gratuitous violence in her stories, on the other hand in her fictional universe there are also brutal societies where the strongest rule and “Mirror Dance” contains perhaps the most disturbing pages of the whole saga.

Mark’s Story is part of a fictional universe that’s already very rich and adds a new level to the development of the character and the societies we already knew from the previous stories thanks to his unique point of view. The result is one of the best chapters in a saga with an already very high quality level.

The stories of the Vorkosigan saga are often sold as space opera or as military science fiction. Certainly, these elements are there – not accidentally “Mirror Dance” may be longer than 500 intense pages depending on the edition – because Lois McMaster Bujold is inspired by classic science fiction. However the level of complexity and of development also psychological of characters in her stories was unimaginable a few decades ago so those labels are really restrictive.

Overall, “Mirror Dance” is really an extraordinary novel that absolutely deserved the awards it won. If you already read the previous stories of the Vorkosigan saga you should definitely get this novel as well, othwerwise it’s worth reading it anyway, better in the omnibus edition titled “Miles Errant”, possibly considering it an opportunity to start reading this amazing saga.